Lastminute.com has done a survey to identify air passengers’ most irritating in-flight habits. Rather predictably, screaming children is up there, but it’s not the highest one on the list. So what are the things that annoy us most of all? Below is a list of your 10 biggest frustrations. My greatest irritations – people getting up from their seats before the seat belt sign has gone out – or using their mobile phones when not permitted – don’t even make the top 10.

Lack of tolerance. Give me a cigarette, a glass of wine and a good book and I’ll be content and quiet as a lamb.

However, if I’m denied tolerance of what I’d like then I don’t see why I should have to sit next to a fat person taking up all the space or a screaming kid or a baby with smelly nappies, or some idiot using my seat back to pull himself up, etc. Tolerance should be mutual.

Another thing is the weight allowance. If I weigh 50kg (which I do), I don’t see why they can sometimes be so strict about whether my bag is 5kg or 10kg, when there’s a person sitting next to me who weighs 100kg with the same baggage allowance.

Yep, that would be sizeist or some other weird thing justified in the name of not discriminating against people.

I feel like I’m being discriminated against for being small. Why do I pay the same price for 55kg (me plus a 5kg bag) as a much larger person who gets twice the allowance? I should get it half price or get a bigger luggage allowance.

(Or just make a little smoke chamber for me to kill myself with noxious substances, keep me contented, and I’ll not complain about what other people do.)

Another pet hate of flying is the choice of meals when it’s chicken or chicken. I know that when you’re flying between countries with different religions and norms it’s easier. (Muslims don’t eat pork, Hindus don’t eat beef, etc.) Chicken is the easy option so as not to offend people.

But I don’t like chicken – not since it’s been so horribly factory farmed and tasteless. So, I don’t like being given the “choice” of chicken this or chicken that. I am being discriminated against because I don’t like chicken.

To be honest I hate travelling by plane in general. Know it’s ridiculous, but I still have a fear of flying. It’s not so long I experienced my worst flight. Screaming children, screaming teenagers (the worst thing you can imagine in a plane, trust me), teenagers taking a LOT of photos of themselves, teenagers calling on stewardess… and all what you mentioned in your post and comments. So… the worst passengers ever? A big group of teenagers. If you see them in a queue for check-in, run!

I don’t understand how “applauding after landing” made the list. Seriously, what is wrong with that? In my early days of flying, the passengers would regularly applaud upon landing at the conclusion of an international flight; I thought that was great. Anyone who voted for that as a problem with flying is a little uptight.

I am bothered by people standing in the aisle talking to their friend and those people who move around during meal service so the flight service team have to keep moving the trolley to let them through. A Qatar Airlines flight recently was an absurd example of that.

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